The Echo, December 20, quoted NFU President Meurig Raymond, himself quoting farmers from the Somerset cull zone, saying there had been a “huge reduction in the number of farms under restriction”.

Defra statistics show that TB in western counties started to decrease before any badger culling could have affected the figures. Annual testing, bio-security and cattle movement controls are the reasons for the drop in TB. While TB is falling in the West’s ‘hotspot’, it is slowly increasing in those areas still testing on a four-year basis.

More pertinent to how ‘effective’ the culls are is the fact that many farms in the culling areas do not have any cattle. And, although the pilot culls were to test the effectiveness and humaneness of ‘free’ shooting, many badgers were trapped.

The Animal & Plant Agency figures show how ineffective the cullers are. In Somerset traps were ‘set’ 7,598 times, catching a total of 194 badgers. The cost of trapping badgers for culling has been estimated at around £5,000 each – not just ineffective but uneconomic. And farmers want to extend the culls to Dorset? In contrast to culling, trained vaccinators from the Dorset Badger Vaccination Project know what they’re doing. Last year was their first season and with a total of 225 cage-traps, they caught 112 badgers and vaccinated 84.

The discrepancy in figures is due to badgers happy to be caught again in exchange for more peanuts.

All the labour is voluntary. Vaccination is funded by donations. Farmers pay nothing – no wonder they are signing up for vaccination. Interested? See www.dbvp.org.

The debate about how to eradicate bovine TB from our herds, and the actions to be followed, need to be based on science, facts and vaccination.

Lesley Docksey, Court Farm Cottages, Buckland Newton DT2 7BT